


Strength

by Babenclaw



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I love them as a couple very much so I wrote it that way but I think it could be friendshippy, I think you could construe this as relationship or friendship?, Kind of angsty, M/M, Riku cares for Sora very much, riku-centric, though if the tag Riku-centric didn't tip you off my friend...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:13:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5198651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babenclaw/pseuds/Babenclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When did “strength to protect what matters” become “strength is all that matters”?</p><p>He would lose everything for his mistake. </p><p>A Riku-centric character study placed in KH1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength

His feet carry him along the edge of the clocktower, the only sounds the wind blowing around him and the shallow breath of the girl leaning against the wall behind him. His bare arms goosebump in the cold air, but the boy ignores it, moving to sit at the edge of the tower. His feet dangle down, the street appearing miles below him. His silver hair hangs, limp, down his back, tangling in the gentle wind. Aquamarine eyes close for a moment, listen to his breathing, the beating in his chest, before they open. He leans his head back, staring up at the pale yellow moon.

_What happened to us?_

A heavy sigh escapes the child and he lays back onto the cool stone, his heels bumping gently against the clock face from the movement. The wind creeps under his shirt, cooling his chest, brushing absent fingers across the skin that covers the cage that holds his heart captive. He pays no attention to the girl, though she sleeps not feet away, her heart lost.

 _Not lost_ , the boy thinks. _Just misplaced._

He pays her no mind.  As long as she breathes, he has no reason to. He is close, so close to saving her, and he won’t let anything ruin that now.

Not even…

The boy reaches upwards, analyzing his fingers, imagining the callouses that hide beneath his gloves. He reaches up, the wind caressing his arm, and slowly closes his hand into a fist. He remembers the moment when he held that silver-and-yellow blade in his hand for the first time, in the darkness of that district on a new world they were supposed to explore together. The boy believed that the other boy would join him. The other boy, his best friend, the one with hair like chocolate and a smile that felt like coming home, like sinking into the sun-warmed ocean and feeling sand between his toes. He’d believed, with every bit of his heart, that the other boy would follow, like he always had. He would lead and the other would follow and they would embark on another adventure, together, the two of them. Two dashing heroes sweeping in to save the princess, and then together they would live happily ever after. Like it had always been.

Like it was meant to be.

_When did it stop being meant to be?_

The boy bites his cheek and slowly lowers his hand, fingers still curled into a fist, and rests his arm over his tired eyes. The darkness is cool and calming. The boy wonders when darkness started feeling like coming home, rather than sunlight.

Rather than that smile, brighter than a winter sunrise on a white sand beach.

When had the blackness of nothing become more important than the deep blue of a summer’s night, every star in the universe encapsulated in his eyes?

He could visit every world in the universe and it wouldn’t be the same without the other.

The boy takes in a deep breath, feeling the swell of his chest under his shirt, the cool night air sneaking under his back as he arched a little bit. He offers the girl behind him one quick glance before sitting back up, staring out across the city skyline.

_The strength to protect what matters._

The child shakes his head, shakes the old promise out of his head, and returns to his weary feet. He lifts the girl, her body too light, and settles her in his arms bridal style. He opens a portal and looks out across the sky once more. He’s sure he imagines the spot of red on the skyline, the golden sparkle of pixie dust soaring ever closer to the clocktower. He turns without thinking and walks into the darkness, Hollow Bastion fixed firmly in his mind.

\- - -

It’s not until aquamarine meets pure blue that the boy realizes, with a sharp clarity, that he has been an idiot.

He’s known it before this moment, realized it the moment he raised that farce of a keyblade against his best friend, his sunlight, the other boy who’s been so on his mind. He’d done it before, intending to stop him, but now his body moved to kill and he had been forced to watch as the other fought for his life. They’d always been rivals, that was true, but the other never realized just how much of a threat he had always been. The child had always worried. If he ever lost, the other might not consider him cool enough anymore, not look up to him with that sparkle in those blue, blue eyes, and so the child had fought. He set himself above the other, but always reached down, just enough to never lose the boy. Just enough to pull him along, afraid of clinging too tight but also afraid of letting go.

And look where that had gotten him.

 _When did my promise warp so badly?_ He thinks in that frozen moment, white doors open just enough to offer the child a chance to escape, a chance to return with the other he was just realizing deserved far, far better than he.

He will not take it. He cannot take it.

_When did “strength to protect what matters” become “strength is all that matters”?_

He would lose everything for his mistake.

The hair on his arm rises and he knows, without turning, that there are thousands of tiny yellow lights peering down on him, surrounding him with the strength of his own guilt, his own mistakes and suffering. The boy wondered how many of them were here because of him. He did not want to know.

From the other side, so close but worlds away, the sun calls into the darkness. The sun calls the boy’s name and the boy wants nothing more than to respond, to run and apologize and hold him and apologize and maybe, just maybe, taste absolution.

Absolution he didn’t deserve.

So instead he shoves his exhausted, weary body against the doors, not allowing his voice to waver as he encourages the other, the other who had always been better than him in all the ways that matter. He hopes the other will not mourn him. He doesn’t deserve any of that light.

“Take care of her.”

The door closes with the low rumble of finality, and the boy wonders for a moment when the heart in the cage in his chest deserted him, pretends he doesn't know the answer because ignorance sometimes really is bliss.

But he knew. He’d left it on the other side of the door, where it belonged.

There was no place for light in this darkness. 

**Author's Note:**

> I own the "Strength to Protect What Matters" typography shirt from Teepublic, called Riku's Reason, and that was kind of the inspiration behind this shirt since I wore it today. I love him very much. I hope this makes sense and sounds in character. Riku's hard to get a read on, sometimes.


End file.
